It's Day of the Dead and that means the Monarchs are arriving at their winter home in Mexico! And according to Monarch Watch, the first three were spotted the other day! As for me, they never leave, as evidenced by today's picture of the Monarch that was braving windy, 60 degree weather. Seriously, I just went to Subway to grab lunch for Mom and me and everyone was wearing sweaters and jackets. I'm a native Floridian myself, but even I can stand just a T-shirt if I'm just running from the car to the store.

Despite it being on two types of milkweed, no egg laying took place as this was a male.

I hope so too, we had quite a few Monarchs here about a week ago, they were refueling for the journey, around here they love the Gregg's Bluemist, Conoclinium greggii the best for nectar, they just hang around it.
They have moved on now

Wildflowers are the Smiles of Nature.
Gardening with Texas Native Plants and Wildflowers.

Well, Monarch Watch has been saying all year that they predict a better year for the Monarchs this year. Part of that is that it can't get much worse than last year, but they have also had signs of an increased population this year. So let's all cross our fingers.

I'll post my pictures from the museum later, but right now I have to rant a little. I don't know how many of you are on social media, but I'm on Facebook. And of course I'm friends with environmental groups, local botanical gardens, etc. And yet, I find myself correcting them constantly about butterflies and caterpillars! I mean, I don't claim to have achieved expert status by any means but why am I correcting people that are supposed to know as much (if not more) than me? Today Selby Gardens posted a picture of a passion vine and was telling the legend of how it got it's name. That's cool. The picture they showed wasn't red, but it was a dark reddish-purple passion vine. And they're talking about how it's a host for the Zebra Longwing and the Gulf Frit. So I had to step in and say that the red ones usually kill the caterpillars and please plant native passion vines. Whether you believe in evolution or creationism, the fact is, the butterflies and plants ended up in the same place together for a reason. And then I suggested some species that would be best if you want to raise butterflies. But why am I telling a botanical garden this?

I'm off to watch Buccaneer football which probably won't help my mood, but I'm a fan and that's what we do. By the way, it's cold here. It was 45 when I left this morning (8:30) and 61 when I got home (11:30). So the butterflies are not really active. Still, I'll share some pictures later. Lunch and football first!

Ok, it's halftime so I guess I can post pictures. The Bucs are up 10-9, but never fear, they will find a way to lose. Because that's what they do. I still can't believe they beat the Steelers earlier this season. Pittsburgh fans should feel ashamed.

But in butterfly news, it's cold. So not many were flying. It's still in the low 60s even now but I did see a few butterflies out and about when I went to get lunch. The butterflies were mostly hanging out on the ceiling of the flight cage so I had to take pictures of them like that. But since lots of you are in areas where you have no butterflies, I figure we'll all just put up with what we've got.

First, I have caterpillars at my house. I have tons of Long-Tailed Skippers flying around lately and it's because I'm raising them on my butterfly pea. Here's one of the caterpillars as evidence.

At MOSI, there was one Swallowtail in the flight cage. This Giant ST was sunning itself on the Sweet Almond Bush the entire time I was there.

Lots of Malachites, still. I released about ten today.

Zebra Longwings were hanging out. They were the first to start flying in the flight cage today. But here, they're just hanging out. That's the classroom in the background.

I released four Atalas today and gathered up some eggs and cats and brought them into the lab.

I counted four White Peacocks in the flight cage today. This is pretty late in the year for them.

This Julia was hiding in the Kumquat.

And I found one lonely Gulf Frit up on the ceiling.

But back to caterpillars! The Imperial Moths don't look like they've grown much this week.

Most of the Black Swallowtails made their chrysalis, but this guy was still chowing down on the rue.

Look who I found outside! An Orange-Barred Sulphur! I walked around the gardens showing him off to guests that were coming in from the parking lot. I teach people things before they even get inside the museum!

And I'm pretty sure this is a Cloudless that is yellow from eating flowers. If he was an Orange-Barred he would have more blue, especially at that size.

And I found a Dorantes Skipper! He's really mad that I tore the roof off his home. He's doubly mad because he's molting and now he feels unsafe. But I put him in the lab so he's super safe in there.

Mom and I went to see "The Book of Life" at the movies today. It's about the Day of the Dead and I didn't see one Monarch in the whole movie! But seriously, it was a cute movie. It was just us two in the theater so I got to laugh as loud as I wanted. And Mom started singing along to one of the songs until I gave her the elbow.

But before that, I had butterfly things to tend to. My Orange-Barred Sulphur chrysalis looked like it was going to come out last night and sure enough, I got up to go to the bathroom about 5:30 am and that butterfly was out. I went back to sleep and the butterfly behaved itself. Even after I woke up, I let it hang for a while so it could warm up outside. My room is on the north side of the house and my weather station thingie said it was 69 degrees in my room. My room is also quite dark so I think that helped the butterfly to not freak out while I was asleep.

So I woke up and let it go. It still couldn't fly very well but I managed to get it on the porterweed. This is a male Orange-Barred. You can tell by the orange bar on the upper wings. Also, check out the scalloping on the lower wings. I love a fresh butterfly because you really get to see all the little details you miss on the more worn ones. Oh, it also landed on me. Often when I release new butterflies they fly to the closest thing they see. Sometimes, that happens to be me.

I managed to snap a quick pic of a Long-Tailed Skipper.

I took a look at the pipevine and would you believe I found eggs AND caterpillars! It's November - what are those Polydamas doing? FYI, I brought them all in because this bunch should overwinter and I don't want to worry about chrysalises when I'm cleaning the garden up. Plus, Dad keeps insisting he's going to replace the fence. Here's some of the eggs I found. They're yellow to begin with but you can see in one picture they are changing color as the caterpillars form.

Then, there were the caterpillars!

And for a little advice on how to find cats...if you see a leaf that looks like this, check the back of it. Jackpot! And stinkhorns.

And then I found a Cloudless Sulphur cat! This is another example of the yellow form that is yellow because it's eating the flowers. I cannot emphasize this enough, folks. When the cassias and sennas are in bloom - check the flowers and buds for the caterpillars! Do not waste time looking at the leaves! I brought this cat inside, too even though I'm not having the best of luck with Sulphurs lately.

And then, I spotted one of the Polydamas culprits (because it takes two to tango, folks).

About this time Mom pulled in the driveway and yelled that there was a Gulf Frit fritting about. It deigned to stop for a quick photo op.

Ask and you shall receive! This particular caterpillar was really lazy and didn't make much silk so when I went to move the stick it was on, it came loose. Thus, you can see the tape in top of the photo. This chrysalis is still fairly wet which means it was made fairly recently. I think that blue on it will fade completely. This one is also a little on the small side for an Orange-Barred.

I also found some more Polydamas eggs and even caught the culprit in action!

You're welcome, Josephine! All the Sulphur chrysalises basically have that same shape but vary in size. The color is usually yellow, but some are tinged with pink which is cool. The butterfly is actually upside-down in the chrysalis. That point at the bottom is about where the eyes are.

Time for an update, folks! Well, the same day I spotted that Polydamas outside, I had one emerge! It was weird because I was sitting on the couch and I thought I heard something in the critter keeper on the table next to me. But I didn't see anything. Finally, after I kept hearing things, I picked up the critter keeper and there was a Polydamas inside! I let it go fairly late in the afternoon but I still thought it would fly away. I didn't take a picture because I didn't have my camera on me and I figured you guys had already seen a Polydamas that day, anyway. But when I left to go to the movies the next morning (saw "Interstellar" on IMAX; it's pretty good) the butterfly was still sitting on the porterweed where I left it! So I took a picture.

After the movies and lunch at Red Lobster (mmm...shrimp scampi), Mom and I went to one of our local nurseries to buy her some pansies. Mom loves pansies and so I try to make sure she gets them as soon as they come in. They'll last until May or maybe early June at which point the heat kills them. Both of my local nurseries sent emails this week that pansies were in but we went to the one because I hadn't been there in a long time. It happens to be where I bought my Sweetbay Magnolia (host for the Tiger ST). While I was buying that Magnolia, I had my only sighting of a Great Purple Hairstreak. So this place is kind of dear to my heart. I wish they wouldn't sell invasives, but beyond shaming them and buying only the natives (and non-invasive pansies), I can't do a whole lot. Vote with your dollars, folks! Anyway, I told the guy who came up to me that I was a butterfly gardener so don't be surprised if I go around with my camera chasing butterflies. He told me they had a bunch of caterpillars on their pipevine and I asked if he wanted me to take them to MOSI? He said I could have them. I looked, but he only had three Polydamas. He said one of his workers trimmed back the pipevine before telling him or he would have left it alone. He said a few weeks ago the caterpillars had eaten it down to nothing. So here are my triplets.

As I wandered over to the milkweed, I found one fat Monarch and two smaller guys. A lady employee approached me and I told her I was just petting the caterpillars. She told me those would sting me. So you guys know what I did next. I grabbed the big one and put it in my hand and explained that Monarchs cannot sting you, and that no butterfly caterpillars in this area can sting you, it's the moths you have to watch out for. Mom said the look on the employee's face was classic. I know we make fun of big box store employees a lot on this site, but frankly, I'm a little worried about the small businesses, too! Maybe she was new. Anyway, here's the Monarch I molested after I returned him to a nicer part of the milkweed than he was on. Gotta fatten him up some more!

There were a lot of Cassius Blues flying around but the only other butterfly I saw was this Gulf Fritillary enjoying the pentas.

Besides the pansies, I was tempted to buy one Blanket Flower. They're pretty easy to grow from seed, but I wanted this particular one because I felt it had the best color. All the others were either solid yellow or solid red but this one was the perfect mix. Even if it doesn't come true from seed, I figure I'll just have regular-looking Blanket Flowers and that's fine by me.

Well, it rained all last night and it's in the 60's outside so it wasn't a great day for butterflies. But I still took pictures of what I could.

Atala - released a few of these today. My 12 year-old buddy, Dominic, stopped by and helped.

I released a bunch of Malachites, too.

Zebra Longwings roosting. Dominic didn't know they are one of the few butterflies that roost together so I taught him something new.

In the shade house, Dominic spotted a Gulf Frit and since it was so cold and no sun, he easily caught him. This is me trying to get it to pose in the flight cage.

This Cloudless Sulphur is hanging on the top like, "Where did the sun go?" We do have a heat lamp in the flight cage and I turned it on to help warm the place up. It also keeps us from losing too many butterflies when we have nights in the 20's or 30's.

This Monarch looks like he got rained on! Butterflies are okay if they get a little wet. The problem I've read is when they get wet and then the temps get down to freezing, it creates ice crystals in their wings and they can't fly and die. This happens even at their overwintering grounds in Mexico.

Only a few Julias in the flight cage but plenty of caterpillars in the lab.

I saw this one White Peacock on the wall and then released another one. Hopefully, they're different genders.

And you know I've been taking pictures of the Imperial Moth cats each week. They don't seem much bigger than last week but they do seem to have more detail. Or maybe I just took a better photo?

Speaking of photos...Melanie bought herself a Christmas present! I've been talking about a new camera for a while now. I've been using a Sony Cybershot DSC-H20 and I bought it mostly because I loved the pictures another user was taking on Dave's old site. But the camera is pretty old and I wanted to upgrade. So I started reading and apparently Sony has a camera that is supposed to be as close as you can get to an SLR camera but still be able to put it in your pocket and not have to worry about all those settings and attachments. Because as much as I love talking photos of stuff, I don't actually like photography. I mean, I don't actually want to learn what all those terms and settings mean. I just want to point and shoot. So I bought a Sony DSC-RX100. Amazon says it will be here between this week and forever so I'll let you guys know when it arrives and we'll see how long it takes me to figure out how to use it! Then, we can see if it's better (I hope so)!

Congratulations on the purchase of your camera Melanie! I am the same about point and shoot, I am so bad I can't even remember the regular settings a lot of the time, but I do manage to get some decent pictures.
I wish we had all the lovely variety of butterflies that you have in Florida, those Peacoks, Julias, Zebras, Malachites and Atalas are to dye for.
I think that those do live in south Texas, but not here our winters are too cold for them, I guess.
Thank you for showing them to us, they are all beautiful.

Wildflowers are the Smiles of Nature.
Gardening with Texas Native Plants and Wildflowers.

Well, in honor of full disclosure, the Atalas and Malachites are pretty much only South Florida butterflies. On Facebook, there was a guy in Pinellas County (St. Pete, across the bay from me) that claimed he had Atalas on his coontie, but I don't believe it unless I see it. The Atalas and Malachites were purchased from a butterfly farm, I believe and we've just kept them going by breeding them all year long. Julias will come up a bit further into Central Florida, but I've never seen one in the wild. We still have a pretty good variety, but I just wanted to make it clear that I don't actually get all those at my house.

It is nice to have the showier butterflies, but it's kind of messed up my usual speech at MOSI. The museum's mission statement is, "Making science real" and I used to be able to honestly tell people that I had seen every species of butterfly in the flight cage at my house at one time or another. Now, I have to add my little caveats. They're still all native Florida butterflies, though so that's good. Not to knock other butterfly houses that order in the tropical butterflies, but I kind of like that we have a mostly do-it-yourself approach. It still amazes me how many guests ask where we get the butterflies from and I have to explain my caterpillar hunts through the garden. They mostly assume we order them and it makes me sad that everything (even living species) can be seen as commodities.